Psychilis krugii, a form of the species with no purple color.

Psychilis krugii is an orchid that is endemic of Puerto RIco, it is mostly found in the southwestern part of the island.  In the 2012 PR orchid society show there was an area dedicated to native orchids. Among the various species on display there was this plant of Psychilis krugii with white green flowers.  The flower lacked the characteristic purple red colors that typical Psy, krugii has on the column and the lip.   Typically plants that lack anthocyanins, and therefore are green/white are classified as albas.  But taxonomic rules are explicit, you just describe a plant as "var. alba" if there is just a single plant of the type, as this classification implies that there are a number of plants that share the alba characteristic, not just a single clone.   When I saw this plant I thought it was a very rare mutation, since I had never seen one on the wild, but since then, thanks to facebook, I have seen photos elsewhere of plants that look identical to this one, including a plant "in situ".   I have a botanist friend that is already interested in this orchid so we hopefully we will see a description of it in the future.

Psychilis macconelliae, a comparison between a plant seen in Puerto Rico and those seen in St. Croix.

In the above picture you can see a plant of Psychilis macconnlliae I photographed at an orchid show in Puerto Rico.  I have seen pink colored flowers like this in the island of Culebra, which is to the east of Puerto Rico.  When I visited St. Croix early in 2013, I found the Psychilis macconnelliae differed in color from those in Puerto Rico.  Particularly the sepals and petals had a different color from those that I have seen in Puerto Rico.  

The difference is interesting, however it has to be noted that the plants that usually show up at orchid shows sometimes are not typical representatives of the species. Orchid growers have a clear preference for strickingly colored forms and unusual plants and as a result  of this, the cultivated strains of certain species hardly bear even a passing resemblace to the average plant of the same species in the wild.  Hopefully in the future I will be able to visit Culebra and Vieques and take photos of Psy. macconnelliae in the wild.

Psytonia Caribbean Jewels 'E Orchids Little Ruby' AM/AOS, a rare hybrid of Psychilis macconnelliae and Broughtonia sanguinea

This interesting plant is an hybrid of Psychilis macconnelliae (which was the seed parent) and Broughtonia sanguinea (which was the pollen parent).  It was registered in 2004 by J. R. Fernandez..  We can see that the influence of the Psychilis parent was overwhelming, you would have a hard time guessing which was the other parent from looking at this plant.  The color is highly reminiscent of Psychilis kraenzlinii, however the flower size and shape clearly distinguishes it from that species.  The white spot on the lip makes me suspect that the Puerto Rican plant of macconnelliae was used on this hybrid rather than a plant from St. Croix.  Hybrids with Psychilis are uncommon, in the ones that I have seen, the Psychilis influence is very dominant.

This hybrid was exhibited by Edwin Alberto Perez.  I want to thank Irma Saldana because she helped me find the information and parentage of this hybrid as registed on the Royal Horticultural Society.

Psychilis macconnelliae, from St. Croix in the Virgin Islands

In January of 2013 I had the pleasure to visit the island of Saint Croix.  I was invited by Edna Hamilton (the President of the St. Croix Orchid society), to talk about the culture of Dendrobium species and hybrids.  I took advantage of the occasion to see the forests and beaches of St. Croix.  This, of course, included looking out for orchid plants in bloom to photograph.   I had the pleasure to spend some time talking to Mike Evans the wildlife manager of the Sandy Point national wildlife refuge.  We know each other from pretty far back, in fact he worked for the Puerto Rican Parrot project (the project in which I work now) when it was starting back in the seventies.  I also met Rudy O’Reilly (President of the St. Croix Bonsai Society), which studied at the Mayaguez Campus of the University of Puerto Rico at the same time I was studying there.  But I digress, let’s go back to the orchids.

I saw a population of Psychilis macconnealliae growing on low bushes over sandy soil.  Most of the plants were growing a few inches over the sand, perching near the base of low bushes.  The condition of the plants was variable, the healthiest ones I found were growing on larger bushes and were not too close to the soil.  The larger plants were those that were sheltered from the sunlight by a layer of leaves that was not so dense as cast a deep shadow.  Plants growing exposed to full sunlight looked stunted and had lots of anthocyanin in the leaves giving them a reddish coloring.  I didn’t find any really big, multi-pseudobulb plants, but this is probably a consequence of the fact that my schedule only allowed me to see a small patch of their habitat. 

I visited their habitat in the morning so that I didn’t experience the worst of the heat and sunlight, but it is clear that the climatic and environmental conditions in which the plant grow in St. Croix is pretty much the same as that in which other Psychilis grow.   From looking at the way the plants grow in the wild I can assert with confidence that these orchids would surely die under the care of the average hobbyist.   I can think of nothing more lethal for these plants than putting them in a bark filled pot and keeping them slightly moist (a common recommendation about watering orchids on older orchid books).   By the way, I don’t collect wild orchids, I prefer to enjoy them in their natural habitat.  If you are doing botanical research on orchids and want access to plants of these species, I advise you contact Prof. Ackerman from the University of Puerto Rico.

Although, from time to time, you can see clones of Psychilis macconelliae exhibited in orchid shows in Puerto Rico, all the ones I have seen are from Vieques Island or from Puerto Rico.  The St, Croix Psy. macconnelliae is quite distinct in color and easily distinguished from them.  To me the form from Puerto Rico and the form St. Croix look more different from each other than Psychilis monensis and Psychilis krugii from Puerto Rico.  But this is work for a taxonomist, perhaps one day someone will look at this question.

Bulbophyllum tingabarinum Garay, Hammer, Siegrist 1994, has proven to be wildly attractive to a species of local fly.

The flowers of Bulbophyllum tingabarinum opened about two days ago.  This morning when I walked into the garden I found the flowers had attracted four or five flies that were walking all over the flowers.  I sampled the fragrance and found it stinky and disgusting.  However it appears the flies found it highly attractive.  The fragrance, at least in my orchid is not strong, you have to get close to the flowers to "savor" the full effect.  Most of the flies fled when I moved the orchid to a new location to take photos of the flowers.  But a stubborn one hanged for dear life from the flower and would not leave it even when I got very close with the camera.  The fly seemed particularly taken with the lip, in particular the area just under the column.  This particular fly was too small and light to properly activate the pollination mechanism in the flowers of Bulb, tingabarinum.   The fly seemed to be looking for something in the flower and explored every single part, the sepals, the petals, the lip and even the column.  When I finished taking photos, the fly was still busy and oblivious, moving over the inflorescence.

Bulbophyllum inunctum J. J. Sm. 1906, a small orchid with relatively large flowers

This orchid was a present from a friend.  Unfortunately it arrived at the height of the dry season.   The bare root pseudobulbs were put in a shallow dish, over a layer of sphagnum moss.   Keeping the sphagnum moss wet was a constant chore as in the local dry season humidity during the day can dip as low as 40%.  Although the plant had two developing new growths, these gave no sign of further development and stayed the same size for weeks and then months after the plant arrived.  I found this mighty peculiar as it is my experience that new growths that stop developing due to stress often die.

But when the rainy season arrived and humidity climbed into the 90% range the plant came alive and the new growths finished their growth turning into small replicas of the older pseudobulbs.  Since the rainy season started the plant has been growing slowly but surely.  But in the past month, a very, very wet month humidity was so high, apparently this affected one of the new growths and it rotted away.  I was startled by this as Bulbophyllum love wetness, the event of one pseudobulb  rotting away due to too much water is unknown among my other plants.  So it appears that this plant is sensitive to both dryness and too much water.

My plant bloomed in early June from an old pseudobulb.  It produced a two inch inflorescence with a solitary flower.  The flower was nice but a bit small for the species, perhaps due to the fact that the plant is not fully established in its new home and lacks an extensive root system.  The flower seems sensitive to humidity levels.  I took it into the relatively dry indoor environment and the flower stayed slightly cupped.  I took it out in the garden and the flower perked up and opened fully.

This plant has been in my possession for too short a time to really judge how well it will grow in the long run.  I am giving it the best care I can as I love the flowers.  The plant gets full morning sunlight  until 10 am, and from then on dappled sunlight.  It gets watered daily when the weather is very dry and twice a week when conditions are more humid.  It is fertilized once a week when it is growing, no fertilizer is given when it is not growing.  Local temperatures fluctuate between 85F/29C during the day to 70F/21C at night.  In the local tropical winter night temperatures can drop to 60F/16C, for some months.  This orchid is native from Malaysia and Borneo.

I have not seen this plant in local collections.  There might be some specialist that keep them but I have not seen it exhibited at local shows.  If the date when it bloomed in my garden is any indication, its absence from shows might be due to the fact that it blooms after the spring orchid shows but before the fall shows.